I found heaven and it has hammocks.

Hi everyone,

I'm alive and well in Delhi now. Goa was beyond amazing. We were at a tiny secluded beach that may as well have been private. We drove for a couple hours through the countryside to get there and once we did it was unbelievable. I will upload pictures later. I spent a roll of film just on that place. Absolutely the polar opposite of where I was in Mumbai. So I made it tonight to Delhi and have gotten checked into a guesthouse. I'll take it easy and do some writing tonight on the rooftop restaurant at my guesthouse. Exciting. Things couldn't be better, in general. No health problems, the food is amazing, and I'm on budget still. So here goes Delhi! I have no idea what I'm going to do. We'll see when it happens. Less than a week to go. Time to do some more thesis work.

No more Urban Typhoon

And so the deed is done. Last night we presented our ideas to the Koli people and it was a fantastic time. We had something like 11 groups set up displays in the village community building and a whole lot of villagers showed up to check it out. Our presentation was very well received and we were told by many villagers that it was the most easily understood and the most realistic and doable plan for the future. It was exciting to hear. Not that I think they'll do it. No expectations... no worries. Also, as a gift, I made a lamp for the village. I just felt like making something in the spirit of the place so I found some rusty wire in the trash and bought some scrap cloth from a tailor and made it into a lamp. Fun stuff. They really liked it alot more than I thought they would. I'm happy to leave something here. They also joked that someone may start making them in the village... and they may not have been joking.

Today I will roam the southern tip of Mumbai and go see the Gateway of India, Chowpatty beach (where Katy's dad is from) and whatever I can find between those two. Tonight begins the celebration for the Holi festival. I am really excited about this one. It is a revelry, as best I can understand and explain it. They get wild in the streets and pelt each other with colored water balloons. Ought to be fun. I brought a waterproof camera just for the occasion. Tomorrow I will rest and then tomorrow night there is a party being hekd for the Urban Typhoon participants. Sunday, I have been invited to a quiet, secluded beach in Goa, just South of here, with the Urban Typhoon organizers. I'll enjoy the break from the urban madness before heading to Dehli on Wednesday for the last leg of my trip. Ok, I'm hungry. Off to breakfast.

And then there was day two...

2 down, quite a few more to go. Day two was hot, hectic and rewarding. It's amazing how quickly I've acclimated to here. I think it ha a great deal to do with the friendly and close relationship with the Koli villagers. Yesterday I did much exploring. I walk through the darkest, narrowest corridors of Asia's largest slum with no feazr or even discomfort at all. It's amazing. It's nothing like what I thought it would be. Seems we have a twisted perception of what a slum is. Sally Struthers holding a skinny child walking through trash... that's always what I used to think of. Well, there are slums like that, but the largest slum in Asia is actually pretty clean, a huge family-like community, and not too altogether unpleasant. I had people invite me into their homes for chai twice yesterday, I was offered snacks, many people say hello (awed that a huge white man is trundling through their laneways), and more than once I had guys want me to sit and have a beer with them. "You take my picture!" They cry a I walk by. "You take his picture!" "Take picture!" "Picture!" It amazes me how much Indians like having their picture taken! Mostly boys and men but young girls sometimes, too. What makes it more amazing, is that they don't always want to see it, they just want it taken. took an old man's picture and showed it to him. He had a joyous look deep in his weary eyes and thanked me many times with hands steepled. I was taking pictures at one point amd a group of boys ran by and asked, "You drink tea? You come with us for evening tea!" So I followed this group of six boys through the twisting corridors as they made their way to the local tea house. They said, "You call it barista inCanada, yes? Starbucks? This is our barista... our Starbucks!" It was a guy sitting in a 4'x6' room on the corner of a building making chai in a giant pot and serving it in small glasses. They gave me tea and the group of six boys quickly swelled to a crowd of 20 or 30 boys, ranging from probably 3 years old to 13. They asked quetions of my home, my family, my girlfriend, my school, etc. I showed them pictures of the snow in Ottawa and they were floored.

Then I continued my wanderings and had more random run-ins with locals that I don't have time to write about now. More tales to tell later! I wandered the streets until well after sunset before heading back to the guesthouse. Then for dinner, several of us took a rickshaw (my GOD are thee people insane drivers! I'll get video uploaded when I get home!) to a beach up north and had dinner and walked the beach until we were too tired to go on. It was a good day. I feel like I've been here longer, only because I'm so comfortable. The car horns are incessant, yes, and there is no privacy, the air is a bit harsh and other various side effects of having 18 million people in one city. I wouldn't live here but I am really enjoying exploring here. Sometime I feel like Indiana Jones. Heh. Ok, time for Indy to go.

Day two blues...

Just kidding, this place is AMAZING!

Hi all, So day one is done and it is now the morning of day 2. It doesn't feel like I've only been here a day. Mumbai is the most amazing and fantastical city I can ever hope to visit, I think. It is not pleasant, but it is so exotic. It's loud and crowded and bustling. The air is thick with smells of spices, herbs, food, oils and perfumes. The traffic is a constant blur of sound in the background. It's hot here... somewhere around 90 degrees (you convert that to Celsius) and really muggy. We met with the people of Koliwada yesterday for the workshop and spent the day figuring out a project for our group. Koliwada is a fishing village in Dharavi that is amongst the oldest villages on what used to be the chain of islands that is now Mumbai. My group and I will map their main street businesses today and present a plan to change their niche to that of an education area for craftsmen. :) THey used to be fishermen (for centuries) but there are no more fish in the black sludge that used to be a river. Now they survive by subdiving their housing and renting pieces out and they have also set up alot of little shops in their village. More on all that later. The Kolis are very happy to have us here and it is a very special experience to have such an intimate relationship with locals. I walk around the slums completely unmolested (except for the throngs of children who want their pictures taken and the occasional drunk man who wants to sell us a a belt) and walk through some otherwise creepy areas with no fear at all. This is a grimy place, but it's not what the pictures make it out to be. Hopefully I can upload some pictures soon. For now, I need to run and meet my group. More later...

made it...

I have the worst travel luck. The flight from Ottawa to Newwark was an hour late because the plane came in late. Then, upon arriving in NJ airspace, they put us in a holding patern for another hour or so because there were too many planes in the sky. By the time we landed, the Mumbai flight had left 20 minutes before. So Continental put us (many missed connections) in a hotel for the night and invited us back to try our luck the next day. I finally got off the ground Saturday night at 8:30 and landed in Mumbai Sunday night at 8:40. The flight was only 2/3 full so I got a good seat and had no one next to me. I read a few hundred pages of my book, "Shantaram." I highly recommend it. I didn't sleep a lot in hopes of staving off jet lag. I made it through customs and immigration without a hitch upon arrival and got a taxi to my guesthouse. The drivers here are fricken CRAZY! Road rules, lines, lanes and markings are purely a suggestion, and not a very stern one, at that. I have never heard such a cacophony of car horns. Pedestrians, taxis, scooters, bikes, rickshaws... everywhere! I truly feel like an adventurer on this trip. Mumbai is nothing like anywhere I've been before. So I got put up in my hotel and went to sleep at about 2am... woke up at 5:30am and couldn't go back to sleep. So much for my anti-jet lag plan. I walked out to the street at about 6:30 and drew for a bit. Children were fascinated by me. "What country?" they would post in front of me and ask. They loved to watch me draw. The parents gave me sterner looks, though. I feel like something of an intruder sometimes. Very strange, indeed. Right now I'm on my way to the workshop for the first time. I'm not the only one 2 days late. Makes me feel better. I've already played some harp and had my neighbor come over and ask about it. Fun times. I look forward to the next 2 weeks. Ok, gotta run. Will check in when I can. More later.

Going to Dharavi!

Well ladies and gents, it's time I say farewell to North America again for a while. later today I'll be flying out for my 3 week trip to India. For those who may not have heard yet, I was awarded research funding to go to Mumbai and New Delhi, India for participation in a week long design workshop and then 2 weeks doing independent research. I'm really excited and have been working really hard to get far enough along on my thesis work that I can afford the travel time. I'm also going to be visiting the site for my thesis design project, actually. I don't really know what to expect. I've done so much research and now it's time to actually go do it. I'll be in the first and third largest cities in the world... it's gonna be a wild ride! Keep a loose eye on section8ght.blogspot.com because if I can get to an internet cafe, I plan on checking in every few days if it's feasible. You might also be able to keep tabs at the project's two official sites, www.dharavi.org (where the product of the workshop will be posted) and www.urbantyphoon.com (where you can learn about the workshop and the people involved). Here goes the adventure of my life! Wish me luck!

michael